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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ALIE

The heart is the hardest thing to guard.

—Fragment of a poem found in a Caldienan monastery

H e’s doing it.”

Alie hadn’t had a chance to register the fact that Jax was in her apartments.

Jax was in her apartments, and it was the earliest hours of morning, and she was wearing nothing but a dressing gown over her chemise, a fact that made her cheeks blaze.

He’d knocked as if his own personal hell were on his heels, and Alie hadn’t been awake enough to think it through; she’d let him in.

Now, mere seconds later, she was very awake and regretting that decision.

Jax looked more disheveled than she’d ever seen him.

His hair was down, not constrained into its typical queue, falling ragged and golden around his shoulders.

He wore plain trousers and a white shirt, with none of the Kirythean military insignia that usually marked his clothing.

He looked, in short, like he’d gotten dressed and run here in as much of a panicked storm as Alie was feeling now.

She didn’t like the way it set a twist into her middle to know that she was his destination when something was wrong.

It was too late to kick him out, and whatever had him in such a panic was probably important. Alie sat gingerly on the arm of her couch, wrapping her dressing gown tight. “Who is doing what?”

“Apollius.” An unspoken who else lurked at the end of the name. “We agreed that keeping the King’s true nature a secret for the time being was the best course of action. That showing our hand too quickly would do nothing but create chaos.”

Alie was fairly certain that creating chaos was more a feature than a problem, in Apollius’s eyes. But she remembered overhearing this argument on the wind, Jax telling the god to be cautious, Apollius agreeing. Apparently, He’d changed His mind.

“We need time for the situation here to stabilize. Time for you and me to take over the rule of Auverraine and cede control of the Empire to Apollius.” He ran a hand down his face, apparently clueless to the way you and me sent an odd frisson all through Alie, made her sit up straighter.

“Showing the world who He is now will do nothing but incite panic, when we have the opportunity to make conquering Caldien bloodless.”

She sat up straighter, again, and this time it had nothing to do with thoughts of her and Jax as a unit. “What do you mean?”

He sighed, as if he hadn’t actually meant to say that part aloud.

Jax sank into one of the chairs next to her still-unlit fireplace.

“We have been in contact with the Prime Minister,” he said.

“Relations between Caldien and Auverraine have been friendly for years, and Apollius reached out to Eoin to tell him how He’s reached peace with us.

Inviting him here, to meet with me and see a way forward.

” He gathered back his hair, as if he’d just realized it was still loose.

“Our plan was to reveal His godhood in person to Eoin before we ever let the rest of the world know. Caldien may not be as religious as Auverraine, but being faced with a god would surely encourage him to see things our way.”

Alie said nothing, chewing on her lip. She’d only met Eoin once, when he was newly elected to his position.

She’d been a girl, barely in her teens, but Severin had offered to be Eoin’s official guide in the Citadel, so she spent plenty of time with him.

He’d looked at the icons and artifacts in the Church with more curiosity than anything, and spent quite a bit of time staring at the stained-glass windows that depicted the entire pantheon.

She couldn’t decide whether she agreed with Jax’s assessment of him or not.

“So Apollius is planning to reveal Himself?” she asked.

Jax huffed a sound that was supposed to be a laugh, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging loose between them.

“Somehow, yes. I don’t think He intended for me to find out before He did it.

I only know because I overheard Him speaking with someone who called Him Holy One.

” He rubbed at his mouth. “So I suppose He’s already told at least one person the truth. ”

Alie sat forward. “Do you know who?”

He shook his head. “I left before whoever it was exited His chamber. I don’t think it would go well for me if I was discovered eavesdropping on a god.”

A shiver pricked along her arms. Jax knew about her power, but she wasn’t sure if he knew how she’d been using it, if he meant this as a warning. “What makes you think Apollius revealing Himself will make Caldien relations go badly?”

He arched a brow. Bruised circles stood out beneath his dark eyes. “Because people are full of fear. Human nature is to rebel, to be afraid of power when there is no means for you to seize it. True power can only be had over someone if you convince them they’ll have a share.”

She thought it might be a realization, Jax saying so plainly exactly what Apollius had done to him. But the Emperor of Kirythea just stared pensively into the middle distance, seemingly unaware that he’d just indicted himself.

Her fingers itched, threads of air calling her from the atmosphere. “By that logic, it was never going to go well. Maybe it’s better for Apollius to keep Himself hidden indefinitely.”

“He’s their god,” Jax said plainly. “And once they’re given something new to fear, something only He can stop, they’ll rally behind Him. It’s only this first revelation that’s precarious.”

“You have something to make everyone afraid, then.”

“Apollius didn’t keep the other elemental avatars alive out of the goodness of His heart,” Jax replied. “We know they’re in Caldien. He has His reasons for letting them live.”

“Scapegoats,” Alie murmured.

“Exactly.”

Her heart kicked against the bottom of her throat, so hard she could nearly taste it.

If Apollius could paint Himself not just as a god, but also as a savior, keeping the world from the harm the reawakened pantheon could cause, no one would stand against Him.

“And yet He’s keeping me here, with no apparent plans to use me as a scare tactic. ”

He glanced at her. “Because you’re my betrothed. And an Arceneaux.”

Saved by a cage.

Alie got up off the couch arm, turning to her kitchenette. “Do you want coffee?”

Jax seemed surprised. “Please.”

The motions of gathering the supplies gave her time to collect herself. This certainly wasn’t ideal, but as long as Apollius had need for Gabe and Malcolm, they were relatively safe. If one of them would fucking dream , she could warn them. The last two nights she’d been alone on that beach.

Alie brought the tray over to the fireplace, which Jax had graciously lit. She hung the pot over the glowing coals. “I assume trying to talk Apollius out of this is pointless.”

“He doesn’t listen to me,” Jax muttered, sitting forward and resting his forearms on his knees. A strand of dark-gold hair fell over his forehead. “I suppose it’s some kind of blasphemy, trying to direct a god.”

She said nothing to that. Alie made the coffee, poured the milk. Sat back down on her couch like this was a perfectly normal thing.

“Do you have any idea of when?” she asked.

“No.” Jax sat his cup—mostly untouched—on the table and watched the steam curl from its lip. “Though I can’t imagine it will be long.”

The silence that gathered around them wasn’t comfortable, but neither was it awkward. Alie pulled her knees up into her chair and sipped at her coffee, painfully aware of Jax doing the same. Going back and forth on whether there was a crack here she could widen, a string she could pull.

“It seems Apollius isn’t very interested in cooperating with you,” she said finally. Quiet and introspective, as if she were just sharing an idle thought. “I suppose He didn’t realize that becoming flesh meant He would have to listen to someone other than Himself.”

That last part was risky. But Jax just shifted in his chair, staring at the embers in the fireplace. “When you’re used to absolute power, having to temper it does not come easily.”

She supposed he would know.

Jax stood. “I apologize for intruding on you so early. It was rude of me. I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”

Alie didn’t say anything. She nodded.

With a stiff bow, Jax left the room.

She sat there for a long time, her second cup of coffee forgotten in her hand, watching the coals go cold.

Alienor Bellegarde had never missed a First Day prayer. Every day from her infancy, when her mother brought her to the Church while Severin glowered from another aisle, she’d been in the North Sanctuary just as the sun was beginning to blush the sky.

The day after Jax appeared at her door, she got there even earlier.

Alie dressed herself in the dark, having told her lady’s maids not to bother attending her today.

It was an uphill battle to get them to agree; ever since Alie had been revealed as an Arceneaux, technically a princess, her staff had been overly attentive.

She stepped into a midnight-blue gown, simple silk, and gathered the cloud of her white hair into a puff on top of her head, letting a few curls hang artfully against her temple.

Then she was out the door, into the green, up the path to the Sanctuary.

The North Sanctuary had been rebuilt in a hurry after Lore tore it down.

The resulting building looked enough like the old so as not to be obvious, but there were subtle differences.

The archway over the door wasn’t carved.

The rosebushes by the pathway that had been flattened in the collapse had never been replanted.

Inside, the braziers were clunky constructions, nothing like the sleek containers of before.

It pleased her that the Sanctuary had been left marginally uglier.